Applying SWOT and PEST to Your Personal Development

Personal SWOT & PEST Analysis

The SWOT is important to the organization but it’s also very useful for your life. When you’re applying this to fit with your own situation, it allows you to understand well about yourself especially regarding your strengths, for example, you can do more focus on your effort and develop which area you’re very good at. And by knowing your weaknesses, it also allows you to know what to prevent for yourself and improving what your lack, the important is you can find the way where you need to get help, even from the others. Along with your strengths and the opportunities you can see of your current position, it helps you to identify your potential insides and make a direction of your personal needs or setting up your long-term goals of career and life. Then together with your weaknesses and threats you face, they are things that need to be managed, mitigated, or planned for, to ensure that all your goals remain achievable.

To do with these you have answers a series of questions gradually to meet the findings of each area of your life with the SWOT. Ask yourself all those questions about your current situation as follows. But, just don’t try to find the answer by your own, as I have mentioned earlier, the other people surrounding you are the best reflection or feedback to help to discover yourself, the ‘real’ YOU.

Let’s explore in all area of your experience of your life, about YOUR STRENGTH.

• What are you really good at?
• What skills do others recognize in you, and what do you get rewarded for?
• What do you do better than most people you work with?
• What are you most proud of?
• What experiences, resources or connections do you have access to that others don’t?

Let’s explore in all area of your experience of your life, about YOUR WEAKNESS. 

• What skills do you struggle to master?
• What do you do only because you have to, in order to satisfy job requirements?
• Are there one or two aspects of your personality that hold you back?
• What do other people most often identify as your weakness?
• Where are you vulnerable?
• Where do you lack experience, resources or connections, where others have them?

Understanding the OPPORTUNITIES

Now that you’ve reflected on your strengths and weaknesses, you need to focus on understanding the OPPORTUNITIES that are open to you. Ask yourself as follows.

• In what ways can you take advantage of your strengths?
• What opportunities are open to people who do these things well?
• What would you love to do that you’re good at?
• How can you minimize your weaknesses? If these no longer held you back, what could you do?
• Where do you see the most potential growth for yourself: within your current company, in a different organization, in another industry, or in a separate career entirely?
• What trends are having an impact on your current career, or on the one that you’re thinking about pursuing?

Finally, you can reflect on things that are really can be the THREATS on the way of your success, and you can manage it.

That’s why it’s so important to identify as many as possible in order to set up a plan for managing something unexpected even we can’t control some risks directly. The threat loses much of its impact when it’s managed and prepared for, ask yourself the following questions to uncover potential threats as follows.

• Are there any general threats that you need to think about?
• If you don’t address your weaknesses, what problems could they cause?
• What setbacks might you face?
• What obstacles have other people overcome when they’re trying to get to where you want to go?

Political Factors

Here is a consideration of the influence that the government and its policies may have on the opportunities you’re looking at. Please consider these questions.

• What new laws or regulations are likely to affect these?
• Are you aware of any policies or schemes that will boost or support any of these?
• Will any of these policies affect your ability to work in a specific area, make a certain amount of money, or be reasonably secure?
• Is there a change in government, or a change in policy, expected?
• What opportunities and threats do these changes or events represent?

Economic Factors

Next, you look at economic factors that may influence your decision to pursue a particular goal. Let’s think about the following:

• What are the average compensation levels in the careers or industries that you’re interested in?
• Are wages expected to rise, fall or stay the same?
• Can you meet your economic needs based on the expected remuneration?
• What is the current and forecast rate of employment or unemployment in these sectors?
• What is the long-term demand for people in these careers?
• What opportunities and threats do these changes or circumstances present?

Social-cultural Factors

These are the societal trends that influence how attractive a particular opportunity may or may not be. Things to consider include:

• What demographic trends will have an impact on these opportunities?
• Are the educational requirements for them expected to change?
• Are there lifestyle trends and changes that will have an impact on the desirability of these careers?
• Are there familial expectations you have to consider when making a career decision? How will these affect your ability to be successful?
• What opportunities and threats do these situations represent?

Technological Factors

You need to look at the technological factors that affect your career decisions. Technology moves forward quickly, and you don’t want to get left behind because you failed to consider its potential impact. More than this, you can expect great new opportunities if you can get a good experience of valuable new technology. Ask yourself these questions:

• What technological trends affect the careers you’re considering?
• Are there aspects of these jobs that are likely to be automated or digitized in the next few years?
• What technologies are emerging to do this, and how can you get an experience of using them?
• How is technology influencing the type of work you do or the way you complete your tasks?
• What opportunities and threats do these situations present?

Opportunity Analysis

In your SWOT Analysis, you identified a range of opportunities. Now that you’ve completed your PEST Analysis, you should see that some of these are particularly exciting and that some just aren’t worth pursuing. Next, you need to explore the best of these opportunities in more detail and identify the ones that you want to focus on. This can involve talking to people who already do these jobs to find out what they’re really like, reading reports on the leading industries and companies, and confirming that your strengths really do suit these career paths. When you do this, you make sure that the way forward you choose presents the best opportunities, and has the smallest obstacles to overcome.